


You died by my side

by leadingrebel



Category: Divergent (Movies), Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - War, Angst, Death, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Suicide, Tragedy, intelligence!Four, soldier!Eric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 03:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3676110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leadingrebel/pseuds/leadingrebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A war against the outsiders of The Faction System of Chicago starts and Dauntless takes charge to protect the people. </p><p>Eric is a leader so he leads a unit on the battlefield outside the city, while Four stays in Dauntless headquarters as an intelligence member. But when Eric returns, death and war has taken half of who he was and Four doesn't know what to do to help him. </p><p>He tries, but it's not enough.</p><p> </p><p>"A cup falls.</p><p>It sounded like a shot in Tobias’ dream, although the gun was not aiming at him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	You died by my side

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Ты умер совсем рядом](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6343852) by [Walter_Kovacs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walter_Kovacs/pseuds/Walter_Kovacs)



> Written as a companion in Four's POV of a drabble originally written by an Eric RP.

_A cup falls._

It sounded like a shot in Tobias’ dream, though the gun was not aiming at him.

Sheets slid down his body as he stirred ― trying to identify whether his eyes were open ―, hanging over his hipbones. The cold air of Eric’s room caressed his arms and the movements at his side ― which he barely could acknowledge through the thick layer of sleep numbing his mind and blurring his senses ― caused goose bumps in the skin in his chest.

He had spent so many hours in that bed, breathing that air, that his lungs had ended welcoming the sensation of having Eric’s scent permeating every corner. His skin recognized the sheets of Eric’s bed as his own. His mind had learned to last in a light dream state allowing him to wake up if Eric left the bed, if he woke up with a scream caught in his throat. His body had come to need the warm of the other’s body at his side to be able to sleep mildly calm.

The room’s atmosphere had darkened since Eric’s return ― darkness that seemed directly taken from the deep waters where Eric’s mind was isolated. Tension could be felt as the first step came into the room. It smelt like nightmare’s sweat. And sometimes, Tobias could felt a weight over his shoulders every time he saw Eric’s sank, as if every single action accomplished out there threatened to crush him.

In that moment, he could feel the change in that atmosphere. He felt the anguish trying to asphyxiate the air, the tension so strong it cut through his muscles. If his mind had been in a clearer state he could’ve felt the logic slipping from Eric’s fingers and the sickening way his mind could not grasp  _life_  as something valid enough anymore.

But the only thing he could be conscious of was the body of Eric trembling.

“Eric?”

There was no answer.

There were no words.

A deafening noise.

Tobias was able to see the flash of light from the corner of his eye.

All his senses jumped alert, though deep in his mind he already knew what had happened. Drops ― a liquid he refused to identify ― soaked his skin. His face, his neck, his arms, his chest.

He felt his lips wet and licked them with his tongue in an act so unconscious he didn’t notice until he tasted Eric’s blood at the back of his throat.

I was barely a second.

A second of feeling a fear he hadn’t feel before, a fear he hadn’t believed could be so strong. The boy with only  _four_  fears, feeling the one he hadn’t expected. Fear of  _losing someone_. Like a far stronger version of the uneasiness he had felt while Eric had been miles away, facing death every single day, every minute of open fire. Without having a way of knowing if he had been dead or alive ― not every time he’d needed.

The weight of the situation hit him at the same time Eric’s body fell into him, slipping to his lap.

Eric’s face was a mass almost shapeless of muscles, bones and blood. Blood that drenched the sheets under him and soaked through Four’s sweatpants until it was touching his skin.

He looked through rivers of crimson for the tattoos running up Eric’s neck and fixed his eyes there, not being able to bear the scene inches above.

The memory of the deep grey of Eric’s eyes seemed to be keeping his mind in a state of denial. Nor the amount of blood, nor the gun laying in the floor, nor the lifeless body over him could find a way to convince his mind that there would be no more chances of seeing that dark gray.

The skin of Eric touching his was the only thing keeping him mindful of it all not being a fucking nightmare.

He couldn’t even know if it was a fugitive tear or more blood what he felt running down one of his cheeks.

He had a vague feeling of being yelling ― pain ripping through the muscles of his jaw.

_Eric. Eric. Eric!_

He reached forward, hand trembling over Eric’s chest. A fist enclosed the dog tags hanging over the other’s neck.  _His_ ,  _his men’s_  ― his  _dead_  soldiers’. And perhaps his fingers caressed just under his collarbone, looking for a pulse they wouldn’t find.

His Abnegation part squirmed inside him.

Something clawed at his chest from side to side. He couldn’t breathe. His own throat choked him. He wasn’t aware of his movements.

His mind yelled at him. It rebuked him. It blamed him.

He knew it.

A little faster, a thought less, a second before.

He could have reached out for him.

But the hell out there had given him back an Eric he hadn’t known.

And no matter how hard he had tried to help, he couldn’t understand what was going through Eric’s mind, because he hadn’t been out there. He hadn’t seen what Eric had seen. He hadn’t felt what Eric had felt.

Perhaps it was actually his fault, he thought, for not being able to understand him, for not being able to help him.

His hand clenched the dog tags with so much force he felt the metal pierced his skin and blood running down his flesh ― Eric’s dog tag, Tobias’ blood. At the same time his skin ripped, it seemed to also break the image of Eric’s eyes and only a single reality filled his mind.

 _Eric was dead_  and he had let it happened.

**Author's Note:**

> Also on [Tumblr](http://leadingrebel.tumblr.com/post/90884437881)


End file.
